Sharia law used in the United Arab Emirates to jail Australian woman after she was gang-raped

IN JUNE 2008 Alicia Gali took a job in the UAE at a luxury hotel operated in Dubai by one of the world’s biggest hotel chains, Starwood.

Gali was using her laptop in the hotel’s staff bar when her drink was spiked. According to this report, she:

Awoke to a nightmare beyond belief: she had been savagely raped by three of her colleagues.

Alicia Gali

Alone and frightened, she took herself to hospital. What she did not know is that under the UAE’s strict sharia laws, if the perpetrator does not confess, a rape cannot be proved without the testimony of four adult Muslim male witnesses. She was charged with having illicit sex outside marriage, and thrown in a filthy jail cell for eight months.

Now, finally home and struggling to move on with her life, Gali, who is suing the hotel group, broke her silence for the first time on television to reporter Ross Coulthart the weekend.

Yahoo News’ Sunday Night programme emailed Alicia’s employer in the UAE with a detailed list of questions pertaining to her case. This was their response:

What happened in June 2008 to Alicia Gali, a former employee of Le Méridien Al Aqah hotel, was deplorable. While the hotel worked diligently on Ms Gali’s behalf, the authorities investigated and prosecuted Ms Gali under the local laws. Additionally, the men involved were also prosecuted and each served prison terms before being deported. As for Ms. Gali’s lawsuit against the hotel, we disagree with the allegations.

The hotel management provided support and assistance to Ms Gali and her family throughout that time, including assisting with medical support and the investigation, liaising with her representative Australian embassy and coordinating and arranging affairs with her family in Australia.??Starwood’s repeated approaches to discuss Ms Gali’s claim with her attorneys have been ignored and declined. As this matter is part of an open on-going Starwood investigation and litigation commenced by Ms Gali against Starwood and the Commonwealth of Australia, we cannot comment further at this time.

The safety and security of our associates and guests continues to be a paramount priority.

Meanwhile, from Saudi Arabia comes a report that a court has jailed a Lebanese man for six years and sentenced him to 300 lashes after convicting him of encouraging a Saudi woman to convert to Christianity.

The same court sentenced a Saudi man convicted in the same case to two years in prison and 200 lashes for having helped the young woman flee the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.

A court delivered the verdict in Khobar in the kingdom’s east, where the woman and the two accused worked for an insurance company.

The case caused a stir in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict version of Islamic Sharia law that stipulates Muslims who convert to another religion must be sentenced to death.

The woman, known only as “the girl of Khobar”, was granted refuge in Sweden where she lives under the protection of unspecified NGOs, according to local press reports. She had appeared in a YouTube video last year in which she announced that she had chosen to convert to Christianity.

Her family’s lawyer Hmood al-Khalidi said he was “satisfied with the verdict”, according to the press. Both men, who could also be prosecuted over other charges including corruption and forging official documents that allowed the woman to leave the country without her family’s agreement, will appeal.

Saudi women are banned from travelling without their guardians’ permission.

And from Chicago comes news that a Muslim doctor is planning a “sharia-compliant” hospital. Amputations a speciality?

I passed through Dubai airport. While it was very flashy, it was a most uncomfortable experience for me.

Anyone who goes to live and work in another country should learn about local customs before they go. Otherwise they have no idea what they are letting themselves in for. Alicia Gali should have done a little research before she went; she might then have either been more careful, or not gone at all.

I do hope that victim-blaming was sarcasm, Lazy Susan. Forgive me if I’m jumping to conclusions, but it is hard to tell via text, and the mentality that women somehow ‘put themselves’ in situations where they are inevitably going to be raped and thus deserve it remains frighteningly commonplace. The fact is, there’s no excuse for rape, and nobody deserves it, whether they go to a dangerous country or wear a short skirt or dare to have a drink.

As for the other story, Christians in the US and UK would do well to have a look at what real persecution is. It’s not being told you can’t make gay people miserable by blocking their marriages, it’s being locked up and lashed for being Christian.

it’s the double standards of the place that really get to me one minute they are all “we are a modern millionares playground with nightclubs and restraunts and all sorts of modern things” and then when something like an unmarried couple hold hands they start bleating on about “this is a muslim country under sharia law and if you come here you must obey”

The authorities in dubai need to realise they can’t have it both ways, either they are a modern playboys utopia or they are a sharia law state.

As for what happened to Alicia Gail, utterly fucking deplorable why did this not spark an international incident?? what exactly did the authorites in Austrailia do?? the UAE ambassador should have been called in if he wasn’t

John,
I thought Susan’s comment was about the victim being naive in travelling to the UAE in the first place and not specifically about women putting themselves in dangerous situations.

I am gay and would not visit certain countries, eg, Egypt, Tunisia, Jamaica or Mauritius, simply because being gay in those countries is illegal. I am probably overreacting, but I would be terrified just being there.

John – No, she did not want or deserve to be raped. But you know what? I am not totally surprised that she was.

Let me put it this way. Would you advise any female to go to Saudi Arabia to live and work?

Unless you can reply with an unequivocal yes, you are tacitly accepting that Alicia Gali made a very unwise decision. She paid a high price for that mistake. That is not the same as saying she deserved to be raped or asked to be raped. But she might have half-expected it.

(And from Chicago comes news that a Muslim doctor is planning a “sharia-compliant” hospital. Amputations a speciality?)
…Oh really, I’ll have to look into this.

Many have come out to complain that the US Army is becoming a christian cult. There are also many reports that female staff are being raped by larger numbers than ever before…is there a correlation here?

Spark an international incident??? Why??? It was just some dumb blonde claiming to be raped. After all there were no men to testify to this, so obviously she was lying. And although this sounds really bad THIS IS the common opinion in many places (USA is a good example). All you had to do was follow some of the repukeian statements about ‘legitimate rape’ to see this.
And in a way LazySusan is right when you are going over seas you should look into the normal customs to see what you are getting into. ANY western woman who goes to that area of the world is asking for trouble. They are not mentally programmed to handle that kind of bigotry. I was offered a 1yr job at VERY good pay in that area, 3 minutes of research and asking a few questions and I said there is no way I’m going there and that was as a man! as a woman??? Alone with out backup??? She’s crazy! Is it right? of course not! But who cares THAT IS THE WAY IT IS!
Not because of the rape, it is bad and I feel sorry for her, Its the Sorry-Ass Law that is the real problem as it empowers male assholes to be just that and get away with it. If this woman had gone there 40 yrs ago I could have more sympathy, But today?? 3 minutes on the infernalnet would tell you all you needed to know.

There won’t be any “international incident”. Remember “Death of a Princess”?

“Death of a Princess” is a British 1980 drama-documentary, produced by ATV, produced in cooperation with WGBH in the United States. The drama is based on the true story of Princess Masha’il, a young Saudi Arabian princess and her lover who had been publicly executed for adultery. The documentary’s depiction of the customs of Saudi Arabia led many governments to oppose its broadcast, under threat of damaging trade ramifications…

A critically acclaimed film, it caused a great deal of controversy when it was shown on ITV in the United Kingdom on 9 April 1980, provoking an angry response from the Saudi government. While resisting pressure not to show the film, ATV agreed to include an introductory comment that said:

“The programme you are about to see is a dramatized reconstruction of certain events which took place in the Arab world between 1976 and 1978. We have been asked to point out that equality for all before the law is regarded as paramount in the Moslem world.”

The British Ambassador to Riyadh, James Craig, was asked to leave the country, restrictions were placed on the issuing of visas to British businessmen, and Saudi Arabia, along with Lebanon, banned British Airways’ Concorde from its airspace, making its flights between London and Singapore unprofitable. While the Saudi response had initially driven a UK press reaction against the attempted censorship, when export orders began to be cancelled, the press began to question whether it had been right to show the film.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in his address to the UN General Assembly in September 2012, spelt out the parameters of UAE human rights policy:

“…moderation and tolerance are basic principles in guiding our political orientation and represent lofty values to the citizens of the United Arab Emirates and to our society as a whole. In this sense, the United Arab Emirates has been and will remain committed to moderation in its approach, and accepts other communities as part of a diverse world built on mutual respect. It is these human values which have informed our convictions with regard to many issues such as counterterrorism, human rights, the empowerment of women, and coexistence among peoples and communities.”

…In recognition of its many achievements in the field of human rights, the UAE was elected to a three-year membership of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in November 2012, receiving the second highest number of votes of all 18 successful candidates.

…Mindful of the significance of its human rights record, the UAE continues to modernise its laws and practices. Government policy focuses on legislation to uphold and protect fundamental freedoms and the legal rights of individuals, rights of women and children, labour rights, as well as the development of high-quality education and healthcare systems and the assimilation of members of society with special needs and other vulnerable groups into the development process.

I remember it well BJ and the sad thing is we still kowtow to islamism.

Whether Alica Gali was stupid or not to go to a country as savage and backward as the UAE is not the moral question here. Yes we can all be more careful but we would be better trying to get better conditions and human rights for all and if upsetting a few ill-educated or indoctrinated morons is the only answer, so be it.

I see that codeine is on UAE’s list of banned substances. I was prescribed paracetamol/codeine while in New Zealand so I was carrying some on my way through Dubai. Looks like I had a lucky escape. Though, as it happens I was also carrying the prescription which might have saved me.

Oddly, they sell cheap booze in the duty free. Perhaps the airport is a kind of limbo. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

Having lived for 2 years in Khobar, I can quite understand why the guy got let off with the lenient sentence of 6 months and 300 lashes. It’s liberal and moderate there (except there’s Damman about 20 miles up the road where they execute crims by chopping their heads off – stand too close and you’ll get showered in blood).

Now if this were Khamis Mushayt it’s far more likely you would be executed for converting someone.

They’re Moslems, regardless of the air conditioning and skyscrapers, it’s still the 7th century in the UAE, keep away . No amount of diplomatic huffing and puffing will make any difference to those tribal primitives.

Lots of Aussies are lured to the UAE by the tax free money, lots of it on offer. But, they do know, as the rest of the world does, that the place is populated by really mad muzzies, stained with a nastiness not seen in the West for centuries. Their tainted society is set up to make women worse than second class citizens, they’re a comodity. They have no idea how to behave in a civilised manner. Nice shopping malls yes, rational thought? No.

Hello, I’m very sorry I cannot give my real name, it is to protect my privacy. However, having worked at Le Meridien Al Aqah, I know exactely what happened. This lady is lying, with all my respect. I was her neighbour. She had the first room on the left side as you enter the corridor and I had the second one. The hotel was running a bar inside the staff accommodation and she went there and got very drunk. As she felt, three colleagues accompanied her to her room. This is what other colleagues in the garden saw. I was almost sleeping at that time when I heard a lot of noise coming from her room. Laughs and laud speaking. Disturbed, as it was quite late, I went to knock at her door. She opened the door by herself, only in a T-shirt, the rest she was nacked. The three boys were in the room. I asked her to stop the noise because I wanted to sleep. She was very rude and angry and told me to go and leave her alone. She looked like very drunk but conscious and aware of what was happening with her. I told her that I will call the hotel security and one security guy was even on the corridor but they didn’t really interfere at that time because it was quite usual for everybody to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. We never heard anybody shouting for help, just hysterical laughing. After a while the noise stopped and I could finally sleep. The next day I found out from the HR that she went to the hospital because she thought she had broken ribbs. Maybe it is then when she realized that people knew about what she did and perhaps felt ashamed. She was newly hired as Spa Manager and she should have known how to behave. Our HR officer adviced her not to say that she was raped because she could face prison as well, but she wouldn’t listen. I’m not saying the boys were completely innocent, nor I defend the UAE harsh law. But it is very unfair to pretend you were raped when you behaved in a not so honorable way. The boys were guilty of sex out of marriage, but definitely not of rape. I lived more than a year in UAE, had a boyfriend and drank alcohol but I felt always safe and ok. I would like to mention as well that I told the General Manager what happened and what I knew but somehow, maybe to protect her from getting a harsher punishment, he didn’t suggest that I should witness. She should be grateful for that. But I hate to see that this lady, after all this years couldn’t get a life and is having a job from sueing the hotel, the embassy and so on just to clean up her image. She should have known better how to behave, first of all.

4 men need to witness rape. First problem. Logic defying in so many ways. Picture that. Oh we can as our female high school teenagers are experiencing gang rape with no police investigations in both US and Canada. Honor killings of muslim women worldwide not just in Arab states. Muslim women controlled and censored by Sharia law negatively impacts 50% of these societies. Total dysfunction and human rights blasphemy by democratic standards. Muslim diaspora now largest in the world. The threat of Muslim beliefs, customs and Sharia law is causing riots in France. Xenophobia at an all time high. How is this muslim diaspora impacting all non Arab countries?

Olga is most certainly either a liar , fake, or both. Theres a readon the men were later jailed and Starwood is facing some harsh liability. The act of spiking her drink was taped by security but dismissed as uncredible for not being a first hand witness testimony. Someone should honestly mod some of these b.s. users.

Another fine example of how religion has no place in the modern world, people should just have the intelligence by now to be decent to one another regardless of race or sex.
also a few of you people commenting on here should be ashamed of yourself.
also olga, you are ridiculous, EVEN IF it was the way you said, do you think she deserved to be locked up for 8 months for being a noisy neighbor!?!?!?
this whole post and a lot of the comments has made me lose a little more faith in the human race today
disgusting!

So, lady gets drunk, inhibitions are lowered and men have sex with her. All her fault then. No onus on the men to control themselves and not have sex with a drunken woman. Lady advised not to report the incident, and so rape culture goes on.

David – If women can claim drunkenness as an excuse for her uninhibited behaviour, I think men should be able to make the same defence. That’s not the same as taking advantage of someone while they are drunk and you are not – it’s doing things while drunk that you regret later. If that’s a recurring problem, it’s your responsibility not to get drunk.

Good on ya islam another disgrace to the record books. When will you grow up and be more AMERICAN and united. You’re all useless unapologetic and selfish. I fucking hate your religion when it’s on the news because YOU DID THIS.

Instead of investigating things and doing the things correctly you fuck it all up and have all the money in the world to spark and democracy that’s fair and CIVIL.

Western women should refrain from visiting Muslim countries. They’re dangerous places for us! Their religion is perverse and evil!

But we should demand our Governments to protect us better. I don’t feel safe in my country any more. I know religious and secular Muslim and although both show great sense of values, I’m not sure I can trust the first group very much.

Olga…you could be saying that because the hotel out you up to it…Muslim men hate white women..they think of us has nothing more than pigs…they do this sort of thing because they know they can get away with it..it’s just an excuse to act like animals…they all need locking up and stoning…why would a white woman want to go and work and live in Dubai anyway? Scum bags the whole lot of them…

Olga… People who are drugged with some of these “date rape” drugs appear to be nothing more than really drunk. However, they are completely uninhibited and can have absolutely no memory of what happened. So just because you heard laughter doesn’t mean that she was truly a “willing participant”. If she was drugged… she could have very well appeared like she was just drunk and having fun.

To tell you the truth… I’ll throw this right back at you. If your story is really true and you found this woman extremely drunk with three men in a hotel room in a country such as this… maybe you could’ve done more to make sure everything was on the up-and-up before just writing off as some drunk woman having a gang-bang next door.

Olga, what you described could be absolutely true. However, when someone is drugged, it doesn’t mean that they pass out and get raped; it means that they don’t remember anything about what happened the night before. What you described gives no proof whatsoever that she wasn’t drugged. Someone on roofies may act exactly as you described.

Maybe she is a liar, and wasn’t drugged. But your story doesn’t confirm nor deny that in any way at all.